Electronic mail, or email, is a very convenient and popular form of communication. Email allows multiple individuals to conduct an asynchronous discussion. The discussion is asynchronous because different people can read and respond to previous emails whenever they want. Thus, asynchronous communications contrast with synchronous communications, for example, that take place over the telephone in real time.
One advantage of email is that there can be a written record of the communication thread, which is the sequence of communications that take place. As an example, an email thread can have a copy of the most recent communication, followed by the next most recent communication, and then the next most recent communication, and so on. This type of record in reverse chronological order can be useful to understand how a conversation might have progressed over time.
One difficulty with asynchronous communications, however, is that it can be difficult to correlate comments or provide answers to specific questions from a previous communication. Often, email users embed new comments within previous text so that the new comments can be readily correlated to the previous text. As one example of this technique, a user may generate a reply communication, copy the original text, scroll through the original text to a location where they intend to comment or respond, and type the comment or response. Also, in order to make the text stand out from the original text, the user may select individual instances of the new text and change the text style at each location. This process can be tedious, especially, when the text style requires multiple changes or when there are multiple locations of new text. A user also may add a note at the top of the reply communication to indicate that they have embedded comments in the original text. For example, the user might type “See my comments below” at the top of the reply communication. Also, the user may want to delete certain signatures blocks or other standard content that is automatically inserted into each email message. So, while the process of embedding comments into the original text is typically intended to be quicker and easier to understand, the conventional process is tedious and in some cases may take more time than simply responding with comments or responses that are not embedded inline with the original text.